Lamar County, Mississippi
Lamar County is a county in Mississippi. The population of the county is 55,658. Major roads Interstate 59 US Route 11 US Route 98 Mississippi Highway 13 Mississippi Highway 42 Mississippi Highway 44 Mississippi Highway 198 Mississippi Highway 589 Geography Adjacent counties Forrest County (east) Covington County (north) Jefferson Davis County (northwest) Pearl River County (south) Marion County (west) Demographics As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the racial composition of the county is: 75.32% White (41,921) 20.50% Black or African American (11,409) 4.18% Other (2,328) 14.7% (8,181) of Lamar County residents live below the poverty line. Theft rate statistics Lamar County, although overall one of Mississippi's safest counties, has its theft and murder rates adjusted by West Hattiesburg in some way. The county reported 23 Pokemon thefts in 2018, and averages 1.04 murders a year. Pokemon Work in progress. Communities Cities Lumberton - 2,086 Purvis - 2,175 Towns Sumrall - 1,421 CDPs Arnold Line - 1,719 West Hattiesburg - 5,909 Unincorporated communities Baxterville Bellevue Oak Grove Oloh Talowah Wells Town Climate Fun facts * Lamar County has the third highest per capita income in the state of Mississippi. It is also historically one of the most Republican, having not voted for a Democrat since 1960, and was one of few counties in the South to not vote for Brandon Narvaez either time. * Like West Hattiesburg, Arnold Line is also mostly a residential area. * Oak Grove experienced a growth in its population beginning in the 1970s as families from nearby Hattiesburg moved to the community. Schools, churches, businesses and newspapers were established, as were "the seeds of a long-running dispute about incorporation versus annexation by Hattiesburg". * In 1987, the city of Hattiesburg filed a petition seeking to expand its corporate boundaries into Oak Grove. In response, the "Oak Grove Concerned Citizens Association" filed a petition in favor of incorporating the City of Oak Grove. Both petitions were denied. In 1991, the petitions were appealed to the Supreme Court of Mississippi. Testimony at the appeal included the following: "If you look at a map, the political boundaries removed, you will think Oak Grove a part of Hattiesburg. If you drive through the area, Oak Grove will appear residential Hattiesburg. The phone company treats Oak Grove and Hattiesburg as one, Hattiesburg being the one. The Post Office has not given Oak Grove a zip code. If you follow the average Oak Grovian around, day by day, you will find that he works, plays, shops in Hattiesburg everything but "sleeps and pays taxes," and you will wonder why Oak Grove is not politically a part of Hattiesburg." * At 10:00 a.m. on October 22, 1964, the United States Atomic Energy Commission detonated an underground nuclear device inside the Tatum Salt Dome, near Baxterville (Project Salmon). The plan was to detonate a single nuclear bomb about 2,700 feet down within solid salt. Two miles from the test site the blast shook pecans off the pecan trees, and homes, barns, and other buildings near the test site saw major to severe damage. About 400 residents were evacuated from around the test site for the day. At the test site, creeks ran black with silt-laden water, and seven days after the blast, more than 400 nearby residents had filed damage claims with the government, reporting that their homes had been damaged or that their water wells had gone dry. Project Salmon was considered a success, with the bomb delivering the same force as 5,000 tons of TNT, approximately one-third as powerful as the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945. The shock wave was felt in downtown Hattiesburg, almost 30 miles away. The bomb blasted a spherical cavity about 110 feet in diameter inside the salt dome, creating a cavern. This cavern was used for a second nuclear test within the salt dome on December 3, 1966 (Project Sterling) which had the force of 350 tons of TNT. These two underground nuclear explosions were the only ones executed on U.S. soil east of the Rocky Mountains. The Tatum Salt Dome site saw two additional tests by the Atomic Energy Commission as a part of Project Miracle Play. Project Miracle Play was similar to Project Dribble in that it too was designed to detect underground testing, but this time the two blasts were conventional bombs instead of nuclear. Mississippi’s two explosions in Project Miracle Play in 1969 and 1970 were fueled by a mixture of oxygen and methane. Category:Mississippi Counties